


Three Times They Fell Asleep and One Time They Slept

by LyingTurtle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Ficlets, M/M, fluff?, typical SI-5 Bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9878090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyingTurtle/pseuds/LyingTurtle
Summary: Four little ficlets of them being slightly less deplorable than normal.  Kinda.





	1. Chapter 1

“Ten bucks says he picks his nose” Jacobi sighs, binoculars in hand as he leans out the edge of the overly disguised deer stand outlooking the base where a very pretty penny of Goddard's money had gone into developing some stupid weapon technology.  That said base had yet to deliver on their promise of that stupid weapon, and so that resulted in some good old fashion hide and seek, seventy eight hour surveillance in the freezing cold edition!

“Twenty that he checks his phone again” Kepler groans, slumped up against the wall of the stand, just below the thin slit of a window that he felt Jacobi was two inches short of falling out of.

“No way, I have a gut feeling about this one”

“The same way you had a gut feeling about the last one being the next person to enter would be a woman in a red dress?”

“That wasn't a gut feeling, that was just hope” Jacobi didn't have to look away to know that Kepler was rolling his eyes.  Despite the several dense layers Jacobi had armed himself with, it was still no match against sitting unmoving in the negative freezing hellish wasteland of cold.

“Disgusting” Kepler grumbles, risking a bit of contact with his hand to the open air in order to check his watch.  “Alright, time to switch over”

“Oh fuck yes” immediately Jacobi leans back and puts the binoculars down like they were hot coals.  Kepler moves to pick them up but settles himself so he's parallel with the long window slit, able to turn his head and look out with one hand while still being crooked into the corner of the tiny stand.  Jacobi fell down into the open sleeping bag that they alternated resting in when the other was scoping out the place.  Except Kepler always stayed right beside him when it was his turn.  Jacobi couldn't figure out if it was so they could talk quieter or just because he wanted to make sure the other man didn't fall asleep at his post.

“Oh wow” Kepler muttered, staring through the binoculars.

“What happened?  Is there a red dress chick?”

“Nope, the man checked his phone, you owe me twenty”

“How about it just cancels out the forty you lost to me earlier”

“I remember you losing just as much”

“You bet a hundred that a guy would spontaneously catch on fire”

“That was out of hope” Jacobi rolled his eyes and tried not to make some snide comment that would make Kepler further intrude into his eye rest.  “You still lost” he continued, deciding to in fact  _ not _ drop it.

“Fine, I'll buy you a burger or something after this”

“A burger doesn't cost twenty bucks”

“A burger and a beer then”

“I don't want to wait that long” Jacobi threw his hands up in the air, frustration seeping through to his core.

“Well now what the hell am I supposed to do about  _ that _ ?”

“... Come over here” it was a low sort of dawn that made Jacobi glad that he couldn't still the caught off guard look that overtook his face.  Even though every part of his body was numb to some degree he still felt the slight rise of heat to his chest.  He actually welcomed the feeling probably more than he should have given it was just a chemical response and not actual warmth.  Still though, he could live with a bit more of it.

He took the blanket with him as he moved over, sitting right beside Kepler as he gestured for him to do so.

“Are you cold?”

“No” Jacobi threw half the thick thermal blanket over him anyways.  Kepler didn't protest, just kept his head turned away towards the base.  Jacobi could just see the nape of his neck from between the twist and angle of his coats.  He wanted to cover it up with his coat or his hands or his lips.

Settling down, he tried to figure out where to put his head and it turned out to be a more trying ordeal until Kepler said,

“You can go to sleep”

“You sure?”

“Only one of us says things without thinking them through, Mr. Jacobi” again Jacobi rolls his eyes and mutters a small ‘fuck you’ that Kepler hits him with his knee with.  Despite that, Jacobi takes that as an invitation and leans his head on Kepler's shoulder, closing his eyes and telling himself that Kepler could fight him if he had a problem with it.

There was something about knowing Kepler was awake and watching that felt like a white noise to him.  Like locking the door before you went to sleep, or checking the stove before you left.  Not like he used a stove and his apartment was rigged with a close range explosive that activate the minute a key without a magnetic code entered the lock, but all the same it was familiar.  Jacobi was out like a light in minutes.

Kepler didn't fight him.


	2. Chapter 2

“And this is why we don't set timers we can't turn off!” Kepler barks, marching down the hallway ten paces ahead of his subordinate, “For fucks sake, I shouldn't have to be telling you this!   _ You're _ an adult,  _ you're  _ the ballistics expert,  _ you’re _ the one responsible for keeping your damn self alive!” The way he punches the elevator buttons looks more like he's trying to kill it of blunt force trauma than make it work.

“It was an honest mistake” Jacobi recites without any conviction whatsoever, seeing as how he's been saying it for the last twenty four hours.  He steps into the elevator beside his boss, moving as far away as possible to spare his eardrums while he continues to berate him.

“There are no  _ honest _ mistakes, only mistakes.  Getting a concussion from not getting out of the blast radius in time is pretty high on the list of giant mistakes.  What were you going to do if you had been ten feet closer and not behind a wall of concrete?  Oh yeah, get incinerated and slowly die of dehydration or internal bleeding from debris puncturing your lungs.  Does that sound like what I pay you to do?”

“No sir”

“No sir, not at all sir, I'm sorry sir, will never happen again so long as I live because if it does I will definitely be smothered in my sleep,  _ sir _ ” at the mention of sleep the two men both inwardly groaned.  Because forty eight hours ago they had last slept, running a full day shift in order to establish complete control of the objective.  Twenty four hours ago, Jacobi had got smashed in the side of the head with no small amount of exploding solid object.  With no immediate medical treatment in sight, they had nothing else to do but have Jacobi stay awake so he wouldn't spontaneously die in his sleep and be ‘a whole lot bigger of a problem’ in Kepler's words.  It normally would have stung Jacobi a little bit.  But normally he wouldn't be so blindly swooning over the fact that Kepler stayed awake with him.

While the memory was fuzzy at best and completely absent in some cases, the only consistent thing was periodically being roused awake by his boss who sat directly beside him in their hideout while they waited in absolute stillness for the enemy to scatter away from their destroyed base of operations.  He couldn't remember a single cruel word being uttered in the entire time the went from sleepy to painfully awake, so if Kepler had to decompress in the moments immediately following the medical clearance, he could suffer through it.

“You wanted a bomb, I gave you a bomb”

“You gave me a whole lot of cortisol and my blood pressure will not be thanking you” the elevator pinged open onto the correct floor and they both step off, avoiding eye contact with everyone.  Not like anyone was brave enough to cast their eyes in their direction.

“Sure that isn't just the sleep deprivation?”

“This is not sleep deprivation, this is just feeling tired”

“You almost hit an old lady on the way driving over”

“That's because I was imagining it was you” that actually cracked a bit of a smile out of Jacobi, amused more than irritated by the continuing denial of his boss.

His office was a good medium size, no sign indicating it was his hanging even on the door.  Walls were barren of any personal pictures, cabinet full of random books on war and strategy that only pretentious douchebags read, and desk clear of any file or even so much as a condensation mark.

Jacobi had spent enough time in here to understand that everything was under lock and key and even some lock boxes were under the locked drawers and cabinets.  His workplace looked nothing like this, it was all data strewn about, classified or not it was always within arms reach.

“How much paperwork do we have to do about this?” Jacobi sighed, flopping down onto the couch resting against the wall.

“Probably a lot” Kepler clapped, shutting the door and setting about gathering things from behind the desk.  Leaning back, Jacobi closed his eyes, relishing in just how great a generic sofa felt. Not broken concrete covered in dust and grime, no gunshots too close for comfort, and especially no ticking of a bomb going down and throwing him to the ground with breaking stone and sparking electrical currents falling down around him.  Just the heated central air, the soundproof office, the soft couch… Kepler looked over at his associate, a stack of paperwork resting on the table that he acquired.  Jacobi was passed out, slouched over with eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar.

“I didn't give you permission to do that” Kepler mutters, walking over towards him.  Standing toe to toe he could stare down at the sleeping man unapologetically, not taking the energy to think anything, just letting himself stare.  “The next time you blow yourself up I'm leaving you there” he spat angrily, not getting a response because his partner was still asleep.  “I'm serious, you don't think I will but I'll do it” Jacobi’s eyes fluttered as he began REM.  Kepler put one arm on the back of the couch to brace himself as he leaned over Jacobi, getting unnecessarily close to him just because he felt like he could without consequences.  “How am I supposed to to protect you if you blow your own damn self up?” He found himself caught in a sudden bout of affection, wanting to reach out and run his hands through the other man's hair, wanting to gather him up, lock him away, hold him against him and hear his gasps turn to moans beneath him and-.

Kepler quickly removed himself, getting to the other side of the office in a matter of seconds, running both hands over his face to try and disperse the sleep threatening to throw his mind into the fray.  Turning around he glared at his subordinate, as if blaming him for his whole mental and emotional ordeal.

“Wake up if you want me to leave” he asked sharply.  Of course, Jacobi stayed sleeping, so Kepler didn't feel guilty as he settled down on the couch beside him.


End file.
